Wake up and smell the Shit!

64 years after independence we have scavengers who manually dispose of  human faeces for a living. If that is not enough (and shameful), these very same people, are being  intimidated, isolated and evicted because of their caste. Wake up and  smell the shit!

Savanur, in Haveri District of Karnataka, was  the site of a protest that should act as wake-up call for every citizen  and the government. Unfortunately, like every other warning signal that we  have seen about the issue of disparity, this too was either ignored or treated like  some shit on the road that we need to walk around.

While the citizens of the town need them for scavenging, they are not  willing to let them live in their home of 40 years. They are not willing  to let them access water - and if they do so - they are accused of  theft - or have to pay a fine of 2000 Rs - something that is beyond  their means. You clean the town's drains manually ...but are denied water to clean  yourself? A 'commercial complex' gets priority over their lives? 

Kannada papers did cover it, and one even dedicated an editorial. Vernacular news channels too touched upon it - but it got the treatment of something that came of the ticker. To Deccan Herald's credit, it did cover the story.

What about the national media? Why the hell did they not editorialize it? Why did studios not discuss it?

Did somebody say the caste system is dead? Is India anywhere close to shining? Not when people have to cover themselves in human excrement as a mark of protest against being denied access to water and being displaced from their homes.

If India has to rise and shine, we need to wake up and smell the shit.

BJP - Going Downhill in Karnataka as well

It has barely been a few weeks since Karnataka was ravaged by a “10,000 year flood”. Rehabilitation and reconstruction operations should have been on in full swing under the supervision of the Chief Minister and his office. In true BJP fashion, the Chief Minister finds himself embroiled in a power struggle with a faction within his own party. Ministers are being courted by both sides and a deadline has been set for resolution. Only the BJP is capable of landing itself in such an ugly mess while completely ignoring the people who are suffering from the devastation of the floods. The indifference and lack of sensitivity on display to the urgency at hand is vulgar. The money that has been donated by many citizens towards relief work will probably now be diverted to trade donkeys within the party.

The state of affairs in the Karnataka unit of the BJP is testimony to the fact that the BJP deserved the humiliation in the Lok Sabha elections, the bruising in Maharashtra and the wipe out in Arunachal and Harayana.

There is a silver lining in this episode. If the BJP is unable to prevent a mutiny in Karnataka, it will be one step closer to self-destruction. Yipeee!